Review of Shooters

Introduction

This movie gives an inside look at the underworld of real British gangsters, semi improvised on the streets of Liverpool. It follows the lives of a few key characters one of which is John who is just in it to make some money for himself and still lives around his Mother, most of the time. The plot has scenes that are tense and gripping and it feels like watching a soap opera, but an x-rated one due to the violent nature of the movie. Using a cast of non-actors gives a strong sense of realism and shows how the characters stick together as friends and how they deal with others through different scenes of the plot. Although the movie features dodgy characters, lots of bad language, guns and violence it does a good job of portraying what it is like to be out there in organised crime.

Video

The movie is presented in anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1; the picture transfer is clean and clear with no dropouts or grain. The colours have that clean and clear look to them, skin tones are natural looking and not overdone and the blacks are bold in contrast. The night scenes are clear and details can be seen well and have a new sharp look to them.
The whole of ‘Shooters’ is set in Liverpool and shows a lot of scenery and locations to suit the theme, mostly rural buildings, typical streets and settings are featured and give that look of realism and have no Hollywood or make believe style buildings at all. Some of the shots show normal daily life with the likes of cars driving about and children playing in the streets and are also used as integration between the scenes of the characters or crime and are contrasted very differently. Liverpool scenery is also shown through long camera pans or static shots of interesting buildings used for the integration between some scenes.
One of the scenes to show off realism is the fight scene involving Franny when he pulls up in the Shogun, even as he approached his opponent you can see that he looks tense and pumped up and after a few hard blows and a grapple he resulted in biting out a piece of face! Another way to show off the realism was through a lot of close up drug scenes that include snorting from the hand and tables, deals going on and weapons being distributed around also. One of the scenes featured some of the characters pulling up at a girlfriends house to get cleaned up after their criminal activities, very similar to a certain scene in ‘Pulp Fiction’ that is also gangster related, where Jules and Vincent crash out at Jimmy’s house to get cleaned up with the help of Mr. Wolf.
A lot of the violence scenes are rough looking and gangster type, when John approaches the youths during the end scene, one of them holds his gun in a one handed, unsure, sideward fashion upon firing and has no professional, Hollywood cop look about it and is more of a trembling, realistic situation look.

Audio

This DVD gives the choices of Dolby Digital 5.1 and Stereo 2.0 audio. There is a little sub rumble on the opening scene to present tension and a lot more definitive sub effects in the nightclub scenes that include pumping music tracks. The dialogue is clear and crisp although there are hard Liverpool accents throughout. The nature of the movie does present heavy use of bad language but gives it a harder impact. Gunshot effects crack loudly enough to seem realistic and sound good. The ambient sounds that feature are the usual things you can hear in residential areas, birds and gulls, cars and children playing can all be heard clear enough.
The musical theme to this movie has an innocent quality to it, a woodblock melody is used and has a ‘child theme’ within if you listen or audio you would associate with an ice cream van but does have a sinister, haunting quality overall. At some points the woodblock tune also has a smooth string accompaniment and has similarities to the movie theme of ‘Edward Scissorhands’ by Danny Elfman. I can’t say that I noticed much in the rear channels but the movie hasn’t much of the Hollywood effects in it and is more down to earth and realistic.

Features

The menu is animated showing residential images and children playing or on bikes, and filtered into a black and white colour. Pieces of the menu keep opening to show the true grit of the movie and some of the more violent scenes in colour. The familiar woodblock theme tune overlays the menu. There is the usual scene selection option and different subtitles to choose from, some deleted scenes, a seventeen-minute featurette titled ‘The Making of Shooters’ and a director’s commentary to accompany this movie.

Conclusion

A gripping drama with tension and plenty of realism giving out a contrast between the innocent lives of others and growing children and the hidden underworld of organised crime and violent behaviour. It has got a plot to the story that basically revolves around the main characters and a huge load of money they acquired at the beginning of the story, but does have a documentary style to it in the way that you are following these guys around, watching what they get up to and where they go and how they live and deal with their own lives from day to day. It might not be the ideal watch for some people out there but even so it is a definite eye opener. So don’t be dissing m’ homies ya’ bothered feather plucker!!